Why doesn’t my Flash content work?

Flash is a software that allows various kinds of media to play on the web. It is multi-step, requiring separate steps in both the browser and the website to work together; this means that there are multiple places where content needs to be activated, and in multiple ways. Most modern browsers require you to enable Flash, either through a prompt, or by downloading a plugin; how this works is specific to each computer and browser setup. Websites can also include various kinds of Flash files that must be captured in order for the archived site to fully replay. Both the necessary files as well as a browser’s settings can impact how archived pages with Flash content replays. This means that even if the relevant Flash contents are captured, there may be browser-specific replay issues.

In some cases, checking the crawl report to verify if Flash files were captured can be straightforward; typically these are .swf files. However flash files can also call out to other formats, which can be complex to identify and understand what was/was not captured.

It’s important to note that browsers are starting to end use of Flash. Moving forward, this will impact how contents are viewed on the live web, and of course, how are they are viewed when archived. Because of this, combined with the fact that Flash can be a very specific issue, please contact Archive-It's Web Archivists with questions, and include as much detail as possible. Support will be limited both because of the specificity of Flash, and that it is being aged out.